HAS SPRING ALREADY SPRUNG? SOME FLORA THINKS SO

Winter continues to be mild, with near record temperatures for December days and nights being recorded across the UK.

The warmth is seemingly keeping many birds away from the garden and the free handouts, because natural food – including insects – is still in plentiful supply.

And the unseasonably mild weather isn’t just affecting the birds, the flora is also confused and seems to think it’s spring already.

The garden is already seeing spring bulbs emerge, while some trees nearby are already starting to blossom. The wild strawberry plant is even producing strawberries and the rose bush has fresh flowers emerging.

Can it continue? The likely answer is no because January and February are the traditional cold months of the year and for the good of nature it’s also good to have a few weeks of really cold weather.

There had been hope of the odd sighting of a fieldfare or redwing in the garden, but even the blue and great tits are not seen as often as usual.

The forecast is for the conditions to be fairly similar over at least the next week, so perhaps it’ll be 2016 before cold (and snow) starts to come to the garden.

Next on the agenda is cleaning out the nest boxes, so when the cold weather does arrive there will be a clean(ish) place for the local small birds to roost in.

In previous years the camera has witnessed roosting blue tits, great tits and house sparrows as early as December, but not this year!

Have a great Christmas and hopefully the next blog will have images of roosting winter birds.